Placing the Bell P39 Aircobra.

[Franek Grabowski]

I have got a Soviet P-39 manual and it is quite detailed, so I would disregard such comments as the ones above.

Art's comments are more interesting though. Definetelly most if not all of Soviet P-39s had their wing guns removed. Armour was not being removed as quite recently I have seen a rather emotional description when pilots were faced with choice of aircraft with steel plate and armoured glass head armour. Perhaps the latter caused confusion? Also, I am not awared of any radio sets being removed, but they could have been converted to HF. Misinformation to poor communication perhaps?

Concerning US P-39s, there is indeed a number of conflicting accounts. I suppose part of them was caused by a rather bad publicity of Airacobra, part by availability of superior aircraft and part by a bad condition of worn aircraft. I know several pilots were happy to exchange worn Spitfire IXs for new Spitfire XVIs, despite the former was considered a better aircraft.